Thursday, April 11, 2013

Tough Love: Share the Bikes, Take the Blame

This morning I checked my email and found one with the following subject:

70's NY Dump Porn

This could have meant any number of things, and all of them were awesome, so I grabbed my virtual letter opener and read the email immediately. What it contained was a link to pictures of pollution from the 1970s, including images of the Jamaica Bay area, which is where I lived when I was a little girl. Some might look at the photos in this collection and think, "Wow, New York was a real shithole back then." Others might think, "Boy, we've come a long way." As for me, my only reaction was, "Where the fuck was that ice cream truck?"

I would have been all over that thing.

Now, I should point out that I'm not trying to give you the impression I had some kind of hardscrabble upbringing. No, as you might have guessed I was relatively sheltered. We lived in a nice neighborhood, in a comfortable house with a panoramic view of the landfill across the bay. I had an Atari and a bike with sweet mags. It's just that there was a lot of trash around. If you didn't want a car anymore you just left it on the beach, but the upside was that we got to play in it. In any case, we lived a lot better than this:

My Big Wheel had a seat for one thing. Also, we had a much nicer house:

(Chez Rockmanstein, circa 1978)

Yeah, it's true. My last name's not really Rock Machine. I just changed it for "show business."

With Citibike stations finally starting to surface, one questioner asked the DOT rep how he thought new cyclists would fare wobbling down the crowded city streets. Predictably, Benson was optimistic. "I personally don’t think it’s going to lead to chaos," Benson argued. "I think we have so many cyclists out on the streets, and we’re all out there setting a good example, I don’t think you’re going to see people hopping on these bikes and doing crazy stuff. I think it’s important for all of us to keep cycling with that in mind, that we’re setting an example for these people who want to take bikes out for the first time."He added that New York has "one of the best networks of bike lanes in the country, and it's getting better by the day. I think that’s really going to make this all possible. People have a place to be when they’re biking, so there’s going to be a lot less friction between cyclists, pedestrians, motorists than there would otherwise be if there weren’t segregated bike lanes. I think we’re set up very well."

I agree--apart from the "we're all out there setting a good example" part, which is ridiculous. I fell off a folding bike in traffic while attempting to place a cellphone call the other day, and I'm one of the more experienced and responsible cyclists you're likely to encounter. Clearly I deserve some of that NYPD "tough love:"

Should cyclists get off easier than drivers for running red lights?"The punishment is not in the purview of the police department," Hurley said. "I certainly don't think we're targeting cyclists. Enforcement is really just tough love to cyclists—we're trying to keep them from getting injured." He added that "speeding is top priority, along with DWIs and texting while driving. We take it very seriously."But Steely-White disagreed. "The NYPD is doing very, very little speed enforcement at the moment," he said.

No, the tourists will be fine. After all, if they can manage to use bike share in London they can manage it here--though I do think the weak link in the system will be the NYPD. Consider the hapless rider who has a crash, consults the Citi Bike FAQ, and runs up against some of that "tough love:"

I've had a crash involving my Citi Bike bicycle. What do I do?Call 911 immediately. You should also call the police precinct in which the crash took place and file a report with an officer. This will help assure all important information is documented.Within 24 hours of the incident, you must notify us of the facts of the crash by calling and speaking with a Customer Service Representative at 1-855-BIKE-311(245-3311). We will provide you with a Citi Bike Crash Report to fill out. Remember, The bike remains your responsibility until it has been properly locked at a dock, or handed over to a Citi Bike representative.

Right, here's how that works. First, you get "doored" in the bike lane. Then you call 911, at which point the NYPD arrives and arrests you for intentionally ramming a BMW. As for the Citi Bike that you're now unable to return, it gets stolen and you're out the $1,000 deposit. Finally you come back to New York six months later, and you notice that all the Chinese food delivery people are riding what appear to be spray-painted Citi Bikes.

Do I have to wear a helmet?Please. Don't be such a "woosie." This bike weighs more than your sofa for fuck's sake, there's no way you're going to get it moving more than 10mph. You're more likely to sustain a head injury after falling off a bar stool.

This should give irate riders plenty of time to form a new breakaway league, or at least to binge on "forbidden races:"

UCI general regulations include a section called "Forbidden Races". Within it, Rule 1.2.019 states, "No licence holder may participate in an event that has not been included on a national, continental or world calendar or that has not been recognised by a national federation, a continental confederation or the UCI." Related rules 1.2.020 and 1.2.021 provide additional details, including specifying punishment via fine or suspension for all UCI licence holders who violate the rule.

Though whether the UCI will still permit riders to partake in "forbidden dances" remains to be seen:

In any case, as the article points out, the "American mountain bike community" is particularly incensed by the rule, because here's what will happen if it's enforced:

1) An American mountain bike pro wants to stay fit and have fun in a slightly irreverent fashion alongside people with hairy legs;

2) This American mountain bike pro enters one of those non-race races in California like the "Super Cool Laid Back Vibes 100," the "Incessant References to Coffee and Beer Cyclocross Adventure Chillout," or the "Rim Brake Rigid Fork Steel Frame Thumbshifter Retro-Ironic World Championships;"

3) A picture of the American mountain bike pro racing in a Tom Ritchey moustache and a g-string winds up in Velo-snooze;

4) The American mountain bike pro gets suspended and has to pay a fine in Swiss Francs, which isn't even a real kind of money;

He was banned from entering the 1976 Olympics after being caught racing in South Africa, in contravention of the anti-apartheid sporting boycott. He had entered the race using a false name, but was identified after being photographed by a press photographer.

"Forbidden Races" indeed. So which is worse: Enjoying some super cool laid back vibes in a g-string, or lying about your identity in order to sidestep a boycott against a country that violates human rights?

(Ironically, while the photographer was partially to blame, Doper McQuaid still might have gotten away with it if he hadn't also foolishly registered as "Nelson Mandela," who was imprisoned on Robben Island at the time.)

Lastly, a reader informs me that VeloNews is now taking liberties with Bret's wardrobe:

He's supposed to look ridiculous. but if you told me this was actually a page from the 2014 Rapha Forbidden Race "Look Book" I'd have no trouble believing you.

The reptilian elite are responsible for the police department and many of the drivers who hit cyclists. They can't arrest one of their own, and even if they did they could shape-shift and no one notices.Read this comment quick before they delete it.

Looking forward to renting a Citi Bke next month when I'm in town for my daughters wedding. They'll be in Astoria, right?On sadder news, I have decided not to renew my subscriptions to CycleSport and VeloNews after 15 years.I've lost interest in the pro world. Oh, I'll watch the Tour and all, but I can't get excited about doper world anymore.Does anyone really follow Andy and Frank Schleck? Does anybody like Contador? I miss Pantani.

Several top competetors, like Adam Craig, called UCI on their bluff, and said fuck it, I don't need a UCI license; I'll just do the cool races, fuck the leg shaver EPO crap.Even Cornballindale called UCI on their shit.

I really hope Redbull/ Freecaster step up to the plate and get a legimate race series going.

Nah, you don't want to look too closely at curling. It's rife with doping. In the first place, you're not allowed on the ice without a beer or two in your belly, and really, how can you look that ridiculous without smoking pot to help you forget about it afterward?

The laps in Central Park were chilly and breezy today. I didn't see Bret, but I did pass three Zambonis driving on the park road, then re-passed two of them a second time.

Also, maybe someone can tell me what the hell is up with that shipping container with the 70s-era full moon and galaxial paint job and of all things, a Bloomberg logo on it, that sits behind the seasonal swimming pool/ ice rinks by Harlem Meer.

So what you're saying is, in the 70s if you wanted to grab 3 bottles, put them on your fingers, clang them together and chant "Warriors... come out to playyyee..." it wouldn't take you very long at all to find said bottles lying about.

NY Dump Porn = awesome. My favorite photo: "Waste from this home in a community that lacks a municipal sewage system is carried into Jamaica Bay via ditch." Take a look at the ditch in the photo. Way to make an effort guys! Looks like someone dug it with their heel. Or maybe a platoon of 12-inch-tall GI Joe action figures dug it. You could roll a softball down it and maybe it would stay in there. Now try that with a toilet-bowl full of water and turds. Call me crazy but maybe the ditch I'm using to CONTAIN SHIT would be a little bigger/deeper.

This is fun talking about the ditch, you guys!

Also I'm surprised to learn that you hard-boiled New Yorkers have a place called Breezy Point. A bit swishy, a bit swishy.

CJ, for the record, the "wiwm" comment is not by me. You can tell because the punctuation mark was improperly placed outside of the quotation mark. Being a man of letters, I would never make such a mistake.

Our neighborhood ice cream vendor was Mr. Softee.I think priests, Boy Scout leaders and male gym teachers worked it as a second/summer job.Few years later, I think they were called Mr. Weed and the town rasta drove it.

Babble said: "back when you were a little girl?? Something you want to share with us, RockMan?"

Whereas people like to accuse Babble of being a post-operative trans-sexual, Snob IS a post-operative trans-sexual. He was born as Janet Weiss, but the pollution in the Jamaica Bay area caused him to develop as a boy. Sex reassignment surgery was the only solution.

wiwm - that's only true in the US, the bit about punctuation inside v outside quotation marks. In most of the world, whether punctuation lies inside or outside the marks depends on the quotation's function within the sentence.

A lot of outsiders cycling in a legal and responsible fashion could create chaos on NYC streets. I'm thinking of the end of "Rappaccini's Daughter", where the girl raised on poison is killed by the antidote.

If the event ranks riders (ex. first,second, third) then it must be USAC/UCI sanctioned.

So, your average fun ride where you are tracking your own time does not have to be UCI sanctioned.

A Gran Fondo style event with timed sections, plain-old races including training races must be USAC/UCI sanctioned or else a USAC member will be sanctioned sometime 2014.

It's taken some of the USAC sheep this much to wake them up to what USAC is really after, which is the power and money. Which is kind of ironic considering they've got maybe 50,000 members, most of which are in the Northern California bay area.

Until about 11 years ago I used to live a couple blocks from McSorleys. Only stepped foot in there a few times because it was usually overrun with tourists. My regular at the time was Dempseys on 2nd, though even that has been 'renovated' and I only went in once after that happened. Couldn't bear to go back.

It would be interesting to see a BMW which has doored a 200+ pound tourist (much lighter if not a American) riding a bike which "weighs more than your sofa" and is unable to travel more than 5miles an hour downhill due to its complete lack of "Fredly" aero dynamics, crabon, top level componentry. Ever see what a tank does to a car? The score: bike 1; BMW O.

many fun times at McSorely's round about 1978...even back then you had to know when to go there when the time was right to best enjoy the place...some of my fav times there were on cold wretched Sunday afternoons in February when the light coming in the front window would bounce across the tables and light the place up, weekends were best avoided, the only night visits there were on Wed/Thu

...i'm willing to give our girl babble on a THOROUGH examination, from the tip of her toes to the tip of her cute little nose with not one nook, cranny or crevise left unpoked or unprobed & i guarantee every inch of warm, soft skin will be carefully & skillfully gone over, as i look look for anomolies just to put your quirky, weasel-like mind at ease...

On a geek note, I finally got a flat in a Hutchinson Fusion tubeless last night. I can report that after two and a half years the latex (Stan's) was not dried up at all and tried its best to fill the huge cut resulting from running over a piece of glass apparently lying long-ways in the road. I had read that the latex would dry out after a year or so, but not in this case. Just thought a couple of you might like to know that.

That's cute but poking & probing are best left to doctors. I'd rather be stroking & ... ... ... something that rhymes with probing. Schlobing. Stroking & schlobing. No wait, disrobing! Except it's too late for that, once you're already stroking. Well maybe not. I suppose you could stroke and THEN disrobe. Very well then, stroking & disrobing. By Jove I've got it. Honey, where did you go?

the interesting part was there was still only one bathroom in the late seventies , so you would be in there pissing like a racehorse into those colossal antique urinals and girls would come busting in the door to get to the toilet...LOL

er...Snobess...?What? That's it?! Yer last book? I don't believe it. Once a writer always a writer... or are you moving on to another medium? Screenplays, mebbe, or do you have the Great American Bikecycling Novel within yeah?

I guess the upside of Rule 1.2.019 is that a Doper "getting some strange" at an unsanctioned alleycat race might not like having video evidence of their transgression being recorded and might find themselves punching Lucas Brunelle "right between the cameras".

Snobbo, regarding you being born with a silver spoon in your butt, or an Atari controller in your mouth, or however the saying goes, I bet you had those shoes with a holographic picture of a Transformer on the side and Velcro closures like my neighbour Trevor when I was five. I only had shoes with regular old laces and no holographs, a bit like a Les Miserables street urchin. I waited until I was eight to get my first bike, a torturous delay which I suspect caused some developmental brain wiring to fix in a lifelong obsession with bicycles. And now I want to ride in those Awesome Californian events you listed.

Your're welcome CE for CED, even if I'm not a woman, last I checked...yup, them is man-parts down there all right, an' no twin bouncing boobies of bouyancy in the upper parts either. Good to check once in a while, unlike Frilly or Babble, who NEVER need to check.

Those dump pictures are wonderful, they do that weird thing of making me nostalgic for a place I never knew. Some of them look like the sort of place Peter Clemenza might stop for a pee so maybe it's just that they're part of my visual vocabulary.

McFly - Whatever made Pullman great in Spaceballs or (I haven't seen) Mr. Wrong, is presumably the same thing that made him a bit unconvincing as the President in Independence Day. Just a pervasive goofiness I suppose. Oh well!

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!